Indonesia, the country with the largest economy in Southeast Asia, is looking to gradually switch to a green energy supply in the coming years. This was emphasised by Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo at the opening of the Hannover Messe on Sunday. Indonesia is this year’s partner country of the world’s leading industrial trade fair. “This will further strengthen our economic relationship,” said Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “Indonesia and Germany are close partners and share the same values.”
With a population of some 265 million, the Southeast Asian country was currently seeing a boom, said the Chancellor, for example in the area of digital technologies. Indonesia had decided to restructure its energy supply, he added. “Everything indicates a shift towards climate neutrality”. For companies, this presented both a challenge and an opportunity, said Scholz.
He reiterated that he would do everything he could to ensure that the free trade agreement between the EU and Indonesia that had been under discussion for some time now would soon take shape. “In a single move, this would create a joint economic area with well over 700 million people,” said Scholz.
Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo called for an acceleration of the industrial transformation “for a better world”. The initial effects of the transition to a more sustainable energy supply in his country were already visible, he said: there had been less damage to the rainforest and a reduction in forest fires, and all Indonesian coal-fired power plants were to be taken off the grid by 2050. Investors from Germany were “invited to help build this ‘green’ economy”, said Widodo.
Having been cancelled in the last three years, this year’s Hannover Messe has taken up from where it left off before the coronavirus pandemic, with around 4,000 people in attendance. Innovations in mechanical and plant engineering, electrical engineering and climate protection technologies will be on show until 21 April.
(dpa/deutschland.de)
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